1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to differential receiver circuits and more particularly to a differential receiver circuit for sensing small voltage swings.
2. Background Art
U.S. Pat. No. 5,635,869 issued Jun. 3 1997 to Ferraiolo et al. entitled CURRENT REFERENCE CIRCUIT describes a current reference circuit that uses a pair of transistors having different threshold voltages.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,467,052 issued Nov. 3 1995 to Tsukada entitled REFERENCE POTENTIAL GENERATING CIRCUIT UTILIZING A DIFFERENCE IN THRESHOLD BETWEEN A PAIR OF MOS TRANSISTORS discloses a circuit for generating a reference voltage based on the difference of the threshold voltages.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,384,740 issued Jan. 24, 1995 to Etoh et al. entitled REFERENCE VOLTAGE GENERATOR discloses a voltage generator based on a difference between threshold voltages of MOS transistors.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,278,467 issued Jan. 11, 1994 to Nedwick entitled SELF-BIASING INPUT STAGE FOR HIGH-SPEED LOW-VOLTAGE COMMUNICATION discloses a self-biased differential amplifier level restore input circuit for high speed, low voltage communication.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,248,946 issued Sep. 28, 1993 to Murakami et al. entitled SYMMETRICAL DIFFERENTIAL AMPLIFIER CIRCUIT discloses a symmetrical differential amplifier circuit used as a sense amplifier in a semiconductor memory.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,221,864 issued Jun. 22, 1993 to Galbi et al. entitled STABLE VOLTAGE REFERENCE CIRCUIT WITH HIGH VT DEVICES discloses a voltage reference circuit employing devices having different VTs to produce an output offset from a supply voltage.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,091,663 issued Feb. 25, 1992 to Ishizaki et al. entitled MESFET DIFFERENTIAL AMPLIFIER discloses a MESFET differential amplifier that includes a differential switching stage.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,742,292 issued May 3, 1988 to Hoffman entitled CMOS PRECISION VOLTAGE REFERENCE GENERATOR discloses a circuit wherein a differential voltage set by threshold differences of an FET and an implanted FET device provides a reference voltage.
Japanese patent JP 02-230305 published Sep. 12, 1990 discloses a voltage reference based on the difference of threshold voltages of MOS transistors.
In the IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin, Vol. 32, No. 98, February 1990 at pages 4 and 5, the publication SILICON BAND-GAP REFERENCE VOLTAGE GENERATORS BASED ON DUAL POLYSILICON MOS TRANSISTORS discloses a circuit for generating a silicon band-gap reference voltage for MOS applications by different threshold voltages of two PMOS devices.
In copending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/038,395 a method is disclosed wherein silicon bodies are electrically isolated from one another.